I do believe I mentioned that I was waiting eagerly for the D&D Next playtest to complete and for 5th edition to be ‘official’. Well that happened last fall, and around Christmas-time yours truly received her Dungeon Master’s guide finally. 🙂 I waffled back and forth for a long time over Forgotten Realms – easily my favorite pre-designed campaign setting vs. my own home-brew setting “Yevindor”. Continue Reading
Dungeons and Dragons
Hello everyone, haven’t posted in a few weeks, really haven’t been having much in the way of inspiration of late. Â Well as I sat down here at my computer after work, I thought of how I am running a pre-made campaign, Rise of the Runelords, and the flaws and benefits of this. Â So today I wanted to talk about two premades I have participated in and how I felt about them, whether I was running them, or was a player. Continue Reading
Thats right, you read that correctly, today I am going to talk about killing characters in tabletop games. Â In my case this is in pathfinder as that is the primary system I have played, but regardless it applies everywhere. Â Today will mostly be about characters I have killed while DMing various campaigns.
I find it interesting that for a dog, the ultimate compliment, the ultimate praise, the pinnacle of achievement is the phrase, “Good dog.” What, your dog just fetched a ball? Good dog. He sat on command? Good dog. He saved a baby from a burning building? Good dog. Ok, extreme example, but you get my point: Whether an invaluable service animal or a family pet, the best thing you can say to your dog is that he is good.
We know, if we take the 3.5 PHB as canon, that most humans are, naturally, neutral good. If given the choice, average-guy-on-the-street will choose to do good, even if it means breaking a law to do so. We see examples of this general societal mindset when we’re outraged because a hero is punished for a life-saving action that violated a law or a company policy. Like this lifeguard, who was fired for saving a drowning man outside his “zone.” The lifeguarding company has offered the guy his job back, but think about it. If this guy had been LG, he would have let the guy drown, or at least alerted someone who could have saved him without violating his company policy. NG, save the guy without thinking about it. CG, I dunno, save the guy and then sue the company? The point is, put on the spot in a life-or-death situation, Average Person acted NG. Just like the PHB says he should.
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I was recently approached by one of the folks from my LGS and invited to a (3.5) D&D campaign that would be starting in a few months. The group is currently playing another system (World of Darkness) and I was invited to sit in on the end of that but I detest vampires, sparkly or no. Nevertheless they are role and not ‘roll’ players so I’ll be giving them a shot.
Enter the dilemma! What should I play? I have been running D&D games for so long, that I wasn’t even sure any more. I’ve played a lot of characters in ancient history, and made plenty more as NPCs, but haven’t had one of my very own to hug and squeeze and .. yeah you get the idea.
Well from my last few campaigns, I had one that I enjoyed immensely from the DM standpoint, and my players seemed to love as much, if not more. It was the adventures of a brash and angry dwarf pirate captain  and his merry band of miscreants. They tore up and down the Forgotten Realms’ Sword coast, making waves (in both senses of the word) and never giving half a care. Thanks to the Stormwrack suppliment, the Captain was the only crewmember who wasn’t a water breather.
So from that, I decided I wanted to play a sea elf druid or cleric. I thought it would be a great challenge finding water for her to return to every so often so she didn’t suffocate.I used my other players’ (I had 2 in my prior game) experience and roleplay as a basis for my own character. I fleshed out a quick character history of a devout from the deep who was exploring the surface world and looking to spread the holy word to the air breathers.
Sadly my DM said no to water breathing elves, so back to the drawing board I went.
And I was going to have a singing lobster for an animal companion too!!